We know that a hospital, school, government buildings, roads, bridges, electricity, water, are the core components of a Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). If something goes wrong with any of that, there will be a lot of problems for everyone that uses or requires it. Without it we can’t do our normal lives. On modern days we’ve added internet and telephone signal as critical, but now, with everything that we do on the “cloud”, which is a computer in someone’s datacentre, we in the UK added the datacentres as part of our critical infrastructure. And now about this…
So what is this all about? Well, datacenters are now classified alongside essential infrastructure like water, energy, and emergency services in the UK. This means they will receive governmental support during major incidents (physical or digital) such as natural disasters or cyberattacks.
Our increasing reliance on digital services, from social media to e-commerce to AI, means that datacentres are critical to everyday functioning. So, a team of senior officials will be responsible for monitoring and preventing both physical and cyber threats against datacentres. This includes evaluating risks from extreme weather conditions, cyberattacks, and other environmental factors. Elevating datacentres to CNI status means there will be more resources and scrutiny over potential vulnerabilities, ensuring better protection and faster recovery in case of incidents.
On the other hand, companies like Amazon Web Services are already heavily investing in the UK’s datacentre infrastructure. They have committed £8 billion to datacentre investments in the country. DC01UK is planning to build one of Europe’s largest datacentre in Hertfordshire, with an investment of £3.75 billion. That’s a lot! And clearly a significant push for technological and economic growth in the region. Then Brexit may have reduced foreign investment opportunities in the UK, but that’s for another conversation.
So, interestingly, despite this importance of datacentres, there will be no new regulations or additional scrutiny over their operators’ emergency plans. And this is of a concerns, as it might leave gaps in ensuring robust emergency protocols. The current emphasis appears to be more on facilitating investment rather than introducing heavy-handed regulations. The government aim is to make the UK an attractive location for tech companies to set up their infrastructure, but then lacks in regulation, monitoring and heavy hand when something fails.
Bottom line: this policy shift highlights the growing recognition of datacentres’ role in the national infrastructure and sets the stage for further public-private partnerships to safeguard these critical assets. But raises other concern about regulation and if this is going to have any real impact. One thing is for sure, if a datacentre goes down, our email, social media, gadgets, automation, AI systems, will go down and we’ll have disruption, even more when government is connecting their own critical equipment to the public cloud. See you on the next episode.
